


eighty-four smiles

by polkadot



Category: Tennis RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Declarations Of Love, Friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-07 22:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5472434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/polkadot/pseuds/polkadot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rafa is having a tough year. Luckily, he has good friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eighty-four smiles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [healingmirth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/healingmirth/gifts).



_US Open, September 2015_

The thing about ‘form’ is that it’s fucking slippery. 

There are days where Rafa thinks he has it. Everything’s going in – his shots are routinely hitting the lines and blowing past his opponents, and even the desperate ones are somehow just catching a whiff of chalk. He knows what it’s like to be invincible, and in the back of his head, somewhere where he won’t allow even a hint of it to reach his conscious mind, a little tendril of hope starts to unfurl. What would he give to have 2010 back again, or 2013! 

Then Fabio Fucking Fognini pulls a Fabio, and Rafa’s swearing up a blue streak that makes Marc laugh, because Marc is a fucker who laughs at his heartbroken best friend because he has never understood that creative swearing is a _necessity_ when you were up two fucking motherfuck sets to none.

“I will end you,” Rafa tells Marc, feeling his face contort in agony.

Marc pats the sheet next to him. Even though he’s sprawled all over Rafa’s hotel bed, there’s still plenty of room because Marc is not John Isner. “C’mere.”

Rafa crosses his arms.

Marc composes his face so he looks serious, but Rafa knows that he’s still laughing inside. “I’m sorry, you just look so funny when you swear...” 

“I hope you get fucked by a fish,” Rafa says, but drops down on the bed next to Marc anyway, because Marc is horrible, but he’s comfortingly warm to lie next to and he won’t call attention to it or – god forbid – call it snuggling. Because Rafa may be a shit tennis player this year, but he’s not descended to the point where he needs his ex-boyfriend to snuggle it better.

Marc pats his back and tells him that Fabio is indeed a motherfucking _caganer_ , who shits in his own mouth, however anatomically impossible that is. 

“Why did I break up with you again?” Rafa asks, his words somewhat muffled in Marc’s shoulder.

“Too late to take it back,” Marc says, cheerfully, because that’s two years ago and they can joke about it now. Rafa knows, when he’s thinking straight, that they’re not really long-term compatible and that Marc falling in love with María when they were on a break was a good thing, but damn, the sex was good. 

Luckily they stayed best friends, because Rafa can’t imagine not having Marc in his life. He’s also lucky that María is supremely confident in her relationship and doesn’t feel threatened by her fiance’s ex-boyfriend, because if he’d had to give up Marc’s friendship and/or shoulder rubs, Rafa knows it would have been seriously devastating.

“Run away with me to Bali,” Rafa suggests. “We can take María. Bali won’t care if you fuck both of us. We can live on the beach and go fishing in our spare time.” 

Marc makes a hmm sound against his hair. “You’d last, what, one week without practicing? And even then, the whole week you’d be jittery like an addict needing a fix. There’s a drill sergeant in your head, Rafito, and he’s not going to shut up until you retire.”

“Let me dream of Bali,” Rafa says, poking Marc in the ribs demandingly, so Marc makes soothing noises and rubs his shoulder a bit more, and then pokes him back and suggests Playstation. They don’t turn on the news, so Rafa doesn’t have to see all the news stories about getting beaten in the third fucking round of the US fucking Open by Fabio fucking-his-own-asshole Fognini, and Rafa wins handily (and he doesn’t think Marc let him win, or at least not _much_.) 

~~~&&&~~~

_post US Open, October 2015_

The thing about retirement is that it’s not that fucking simple.

If Rafa was still having physical issues like he’s had in the past, he’d be considering retirement at this point. Not that he’d ever tell the media that, or any of his competitors! But really, he’s had his body break down on him several times already, and they have been the most frustrating and heartbreaking periods of his career, for sure. He still has flashbacks to the Australian Open final, his back making it impossible for him to truly compete (much as he tried). Sometimes he dreams it, and wakes up in a cold sweat. Or he dreams that it’s his knees again, or his foot, or his wrist, or … 

It’s not physical issues, though. Oh sure, he has niggles like any athlete. But this time it’s not as simple as ‘you’re too fucked, time to transition to your post-tennis life’ or ‘you’re fucked, but give it six months and you will probably be less fucked and can come back and start winning again’. Instead, it’s ‘you might be fucked? I dunno? It’s in your brain maybe? Or maybe you’re just getting old and have to adapt? Or maybe tomorrow it will click and you’ll get in the groove and your confidence will come roaring back and you’ll win three Slams next year?’

Pico, who is recovering from wrist surgery and has the unsightly brace to prove it, makes a lot of faces when Rafa even gets close to the issue. “You’re the best in the world, man. Forget Djokovic. So he’s the flexible rubber man. Whatever. You get your mojo back, you’ve got him dead to rights.” (Pico has obviously been watching crime shows during his enforced post-surgery downtime.)

“Yeah,” Rafa says, wishing Pico was on tour, not in Argentina. FaceTime is great, but it’s not the same as having him here. “Got to get my mojo back, though.”

“You’re having good practices?” Pico asks, trying to scratch his nose with the wrong hand, nearly bopping himself in the face with the cast, and pretending like he totally didn’t do any of that, no sirree, that was an utter non-event.

“Yeah,” Rafa says. “Everything works in practice.”

Practice has never been his problem. Anytime somebody watches him practice for the first time, they always come away saying that he’s more aggressive, making more shots, more effective, putting more juice on the ball, and just overall more terrifying than he is in matches. But that’s the _point_ \- practices are not matches, practices are practices, and the critical non-scientific spark doesn’t always transfer. (Though that doesn’t stop Maymo from trying to track it down and _make_ it transfer, metaphysical issues aside.)

“Then you’ll get it,” Pico declares, with easy certainty. “Just you watch, this time next year you’ll be Roland Garros and US Open champion, and we’ll go on holiday to celebrate. Or maybe you come to Argentina. We’ll smuggle you in, nobody will know you’re here. We’ll give you a fake mustache and say you’re my cousin Jorge.”

“Excuse you,” Rafa says, breaking into this elaborate flight of fancy (there is no way he’s going to pass as a Jorge, does he _look_ like a Jorge?). “Only Roland Garros and US? You think two is the most I win?”

Pico scratches his abs, this time luckily with the correct hand. “I win Wimbledon and we let Stan have AO again, make Djokovic cry in epic five sets.” 

“I want Wimbledon,” Rafa says, because he’s this person, he’s the person who will fight over fictional imaginary fantasy future Slams. “You can have US.”

Pico rolls his eyes, but he also says, “Fine, have Wimbledon, Mr. Greedy,” so Rafa considers that a win.

~~~&&&~~~

_World Tour Finals, November 2015_

The thing about losing is that it’s never fucking okay, even in practice.

“That was out by a mile and you know it,” Rafa says, leaning over the net and refusing to go back to the baseline.

The smirk on Stan’s face is evidence enough. He’d be convicted on that alone, if this was a court of law. “You’re just lazy today, you didn’t want to chase it.”

Damn right Rafa doesn’t really want to chase dropshots today – not Stan’s anyway, which are cheeky and which he’s doing _on purpose_ because he is an asshole – but that’s not the point. “I didn’t chase it because that dropshot was in Paris. And we are in London.”

“We are in London,” Stan agrees, far too meekly. (Rafa distrusts it when Stan gets meek. He slid a foot into a shoe with Jello in it once, when he didn’t trust his instincts where Stan was concerned. Far too mischievous a sense of humor.) “And you, mon cher, are down 4-6 in a tiebreak.”

They’re lucky that Toni is running late today, leaving Maymo and Magnus in charge. Toni’s a taskmaster, which is usually good, but right now he’d be quite unamused. Practice drills are for practice. Practice sets are for practice. Neither is for goofing off, or for trying to make your practice partner laugh, or for banter. (Maymo is also very intense about practice – as Rafa is himself usually – but he also knows when to just sigh and let Rafa slide a little.)

“I am not down 4-6!” Rafa says, putting his hands on his hips. “It’s my fucking side! That was out!”

It’s just a practice set. Rafa knows he can save the competitiveness for the tournament – they’ve been drawn in the same group, so if he’s ever going to win a WTF title, he probably has to go through Stan to get there. (And Djokovic, but Rafa’s not going to think about Djokovic right now. Deal with tomorrow’s problems tomorrow.) 

But dammit, Stan’s dropshots may bring all the boys to the yard, but that one was out and Stan fucking knows it.

“Strong language, so disappointing from an international role model,” Stan says, shaking his head in mock disapproval. Then, too low for Magnus and Maymo to hear, “Do you kiss your boyfriend with that mouth?”

Rafa struggles to maintain a straight face, because Magnus and Maymo may be across the court, but they can still see perfectly well. “I do,” he says, just as quietly.

“Good,” Stan says, with his little elusive corner-of-the-mouth smile that Rafa loves. Then he raises his voice again and continues, “Fine, 5-all. Don’t say I never did anything nice for you.”

Rafa goes back to his baseline, trying not to smile. 

They only had the conversation last night, curled together in the sheets of Stan’s hotel room, because Rafa’s is next door to Toni’s and there is no way in hell he’s having sex on the other side of a narrow wall from Toni. 

(Which has made his sex life more adventurous over the years. When you can’t have sex in your hotel suite – and you’re living in hotels most of the year – you either a) have sex in your partner’s hotel suite, even if their roommate is pissed off at being sexiled and tries to hit tennis balls at your nuts the next time you practice with them, b) have sex in semi-public places, although locker room showers are out-of-bounds after the time Karlovic almost walked in on you, or c) book another room in the same hotel as your suite, which means that you have to sneak around and you almost had a heart attack that one time when you were sneaking back into your suite at 3am and Toni had for some reason checked your bed and was waiting for you in the fucking dark to suddenly boom out a challenge at you and scare you halfway to Mars.)

Before last night, they hadn’t put a name on it, not really. It started at Wimbledon as a fling, and you don’t really talk about anything long-term when your goals are stripping clothing and getting down to business. Rafa had known that Stan left his wife because he couldn’t try to fix a broken marriage any longer; Stan had known that Xisca was one of Rafa’s best friends, but only that. That was good enough. 

Since then they’ve fucked pretty regularly, whenever they’re in the same tournament – the sex is amazing – but for five months they haven’t talked about it. Simple is good. Simple is _really_ good when you’re having an awful year and just want some fucking good sex to help with the tension. Rafa wasn’t even really sure he wanted a boyfriend, not an actual real boyfriend, because there hadn’t been anyone since Marc, and maybe he wasn’t really cut out for boyfriend material. He likes sex, a lot, but commitment? 

(It didn’t help that he was in his own head already about tennis, so there was absolutely no room left to start worrying about a relationship as well. Rafa may have mental blocks with regard to his tennis right now, but he is painfully self-aware.)

Last night, they’d fucked once already and were watching football as a breather before round two (no matches until next week, so Rafa didn’t feel bad about overexerting himself), when Stan turned on his side and said, with no preamble to give a guy a clue, “I’m not sure what you want from me.” Then, probably seeing Rafa’s eyes start to fill with panic, “We don’t have to talk about it. I’m just bringing it up, because I think we should see if we want the same things.”

He’d looked so calm. Rafa had been amazed at how calm he was. His own heart had been going about as fast as late fifth-set. 

“What if I just want sex?” he asked, clenching the remote in his hand, but Stan wasn’t looking at his hand.

Stan smiled, the smile that felt like an affectionate thumb down Rafa’s cheek. “That’s fine. You’re a great fuck, and we can keep this up. But –”

 _There’s always a but._  

“I’m going to be looking for a boyfriend.” Stan looked up at the ceiling, away from Rafa’s eyes. “I had a fake relationship. And when I realized I couldn’t do that anymore, I knew I wanted… more. If I was going to end the marriage and cause that huge mess, it needed to be for something. Not just so I could have sex without feeling guilty.”

Rafa looked up at the ceiling too. It was a normal hotel ceiling, nothing particularly special about it. Roger’s hotel ceilings probably had, like, inlaid gold designs on them or something crazy like that. 

Did he want a relationship?

Stan made him smile. Rafa loved the sex, he really did, because Stan did this thing with… okay, he was getting distracted. But it wasn’t only the sex. Stan was wickedly funny, and low-key in a way that was really refreshing, like a real massage not a painful horrible recovery massage. Sure, he was a challenge on court, but it was a good challenge, not a Djokovic-infuriating challenge, or a Fognini-enraging challenge. 

And Rafa genuinely liked spending time with him (again, beyond the sex). They’d always been friendly acquaintances, but ever since the Australian Open where Rafa’s back decided to take a holiday, they’d become closer. Rafa didn’t have many friends in tennis – not real ones; for the most part, he kept his real friends and his tennis friendly-acquaintances separate. They existed in different spheres of his life, and he’d never had any problems with that. Marc had bridged the gap, of course; and now Stan. He hadn’t been thinking about anything beyond fuckbuddies, really, but…

“It’s okay,” Stan said, breaking into Rafa’s increasingly hyperactive inner monologue. “No pressure, okay? I just want it to be something you’re thinking about.”

Maybe it would have been just something to think about, if Rafa hadn’t happened to look away from the ceiling just then.

“Wait,” he said, because Stan had many wry and whimsical faces, but his look right now –

Oh. _Oh._

Rafa took a moment to damn the language barrier – he and Stan communicated very well usually, but that was normal words, not more difficult things – and then forged on as best he could. “Are you… do you…”

Fucking hell, why didn’t Stan speak Catalan? You couldn’t just ask a man “is this something you want to try and see where it goes, or are you already in love with me”, even if you could find the stupid English words for it. 

Rafa hadn’t won 14 Slams without knowing when to pick his battles. He opted to retire from the English match and advance on another front.

Stan’s mouth opened readily under his own, kissing him back gently. He could get fierce and insistent, Rafa knew, but just then there was none of that. Just Stan, warm in his arms, and suddenly everything was clear, as easy and natural as going for a passing shot down the line when the opponent left himself wide open.

“Do you love me?” he asked, when they drew apart. 

Stan looked up at him, and whatever he saw in Rafa’s face made him break into the softest smile Rafa had ever seen on him, and Rafa had seen approximately eighty-four different types of Stan smiles. “Yes,” he said, and brought a hand to the back of Rafa’s head to pull him down again.

“If you’re going to be my boyfriend, we’re going to fuck right now,” Rafa said. He believed in being really clear about things.

Stan laughed and kissed his smile, because Rafa couldn’t seem to stop grinning…

~

“5-all,” Stan says, and bounces the ball in a showy pattern he probably got from Monfils. “Ready?”

Rafa settles into return stance. “Ready.”

~~~&&&~~~

_Roland Garros, June 2016_

The thing about winning is that there’s nothing fucking like it, and when it happens, everything else melts away.

Rafa’s filthy, all over clay. He gets up from the ground and trots to the net, where Stan is already waiting. His smile is rueful, but Rafa can see the fondness mixed in.

They hug, close and tight. Rafa resists the urge to drop his head to Stan’s shoulder, and the even stronger urge to kiss him, here in the first flush of victory. Not today. They’re not ready yet for the furor a public announcement would bring. But in their own time, Rafa feels sure they will be. 

“La décima,” Stan murmurs in his ear, the tenor of his voice doing Pavlovian things to Rafa. “La décima, mi campeón, mi corazón.”

Rafa holds him tighter for one long moment, then lets him go.

All around him, the roar of the crowd feels like the rhythm of his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> "I hope you get fucked by a fish" = _Que te folle un pez_  
>  Caganer = [defectating farmers in Catalan nativity scenes](http://s24.postimg.org/h1gd7vtdx/Caganer_traditional.jpg). Basically, "an enormous ass".  
> “La décima, mi campeón, mi corazón.” = "The tenth [Roland Garros], my champion, my heart."


End file.
